Monday 6 March 2017

BARBARA VINE - KING SOLOMON'S CARPET (1991)


Synopsis/blurb….

King Solomon's Carpet is a prize-winning crime classic from bestselling author Barbara Vine
Winner of the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award

'The tension grows ... an overwhelming sense of foreboding ... when the unravelling takes place, it is brilliantly unexpected and original' The Times

Jarvis Stringer lives in a crumbling schoolhouse overlooking a tube line, compiling his obsessive, secret history of London's Underground. His presence and his strange house draw a band of misfits into his orbit: young Alice, who has run away from her husband and baby; Tom, the busker who rescues her; truant Jasper who gets his kicks on the tube; and mysterious Axel, whose dark secret later casts a shadow over all of their lives.

Dispossessed and outcast, those who come to inhabit Jarvis's schoolhouse are gradually brought closer together in violent and unforeseen ways by London's forbidding and dangerous Underground . . .

I’m fairly sure I read something from Ruth Rendell back in my schooldays, so long ago in fact it probably doesn’t count even if I could recall what is was, which I can’t. King Solomon’s Carpet then is my first real taste of her writing.

Although this one won the Gold Dagger back in 1991, there probably isn’t an awful lot of crime within the pages. It’s more a novel of individual characters, including three generations of the one family, crossing paths with others against the backdrop of the London Underground and a former schoolhouse, which now serves as lodgings for some of the cast.

Interspersed in the narrative are facts regarding the Underground, its history and evolution and expansion, from its conception as one man’s idea - Charles Pearson, a Victorian visionary – “A poor man is chained to the spot. He has not the leisure to walk and he has not money to ride a distance to his work.”

I really liked this book, mainly for the characters and the development of the relationships between the main players, as well as the Underground history lesson.

Family;

A grandmother – Cecilia, affluent and a bit judgemental,

A daughter – Tina, carefree with a somewhat feckless attitude to life, easy come, easy go, easy with the men she crosses paths with,

Tina’s two children, one boy one girl;

The girl – Bienvida perceptive to her grandmother’s moods and considerate in her responses regarding her mother, both knowing what lies, both little white ones and those by omission are being told.

The boy – Jasper adventurous, a regular truant and addicted to the thrills of sledging on the London Underground. (Sledging – the art of riding on a tube train’s roof between stations. I’m curious to know if this is or was an actual phenomenon, and a childhood initiation rite, or if it is in fact something the author dreamt up? The only real references to it that I can find, send me back to this book!) Jasper’s a free spirit like his mother, a pre-teen with a tattoo!

Other significant characters;

Alice – a wife and mother who abandons her husband and young infant daughter to follow her dream of playing the violin.

Tom - a busker, slightly damaged and with an adjusted personality after a car accident.

Jarvis Stringer – landlord and fervent Underground enthusiast. He is to trains, what Jeremy Clarkson is to cars (albeit without the right-wing rhetoric and polemic utterings).

Axel Jonas – a bit of a mystery man, charming when he wants to be, aloof, indifferent, sometimes cruel – not a man to be trusted.

The connections and evolving relationships drive the narrative, though we do have a man with a plan that delivers a fairly explosive climax.

4 from 5

Very enjoyable, definitely I want to read more from Ruth Rendell, both writing as Ruth (but probably not Inspector Wexford) and as Barbara Vine.

Read in January, 2017
Published – 1991
Page count – 358
Source – owned copy

Format – second hand paperback.

16 comments:

  1. Very glad you enjoyed this one, Col. Rendell (both as herself and as Vine) wrote some fine crime fiction, no doubt about it. I hope you'll like your further exploration of her work (*hint* A Judgement in Stone)...

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    1. Margot, thanks for the heads-up. A Judgement in Stone is one of those waiting on the pile! Looking forward to it at some point!

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  2. I love some Rendell, and some I don't much like - this fell into the second category for me, but I can see it would be more your thing. she wrote so much! - it can be hard to find the right ones. A Judgement in Stone is a great favourite of both Margot and me, so resistance is useless - you can't withstand both of us, you have to read it.

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    1. I'll see if I can get to AJIS later this year. I hadn't realised she was such a marmite author.

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  3. I much prefer her Barbara Vine stuff but even the Rendells that I've read were really good.Never read this one though so I'll put it on the list. I have a little list ...

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    1. I ought to try some "Ruths" and some more "Barbaras".
      Why the pseudonym? Did she have two different writing heads a la Westlake-Stark or was it a publishing thing - you can't have too many books coming out in the one year?

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  4. Col, I did not know Barbara Vine was Ruth Rendell. I often come across Barbara Vine paperbacks at book exhibitions. Embarrassed to say, I have read neither Rendell nor her pseudonym.

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    1. Plenty of time to address that Prashant. Its taken me a while to get 50% there!

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  5. I'm a big fan of both the Ruth Rendell standalones (not so fussed about Inspector Wexford) and the Barbara Vine books, which are more psychological, before that was written on the cover of every book. Iknow I've read this one, as I've read them all, but only vaguely remember it. I really should re-read some of her work, particularly the Vine books. My favourites of those are Asta's Book and The Blood Doctor - the crime committed in the latter is particularly complex and hideous! I'd recommend it thoroughly. Her death was a colossal loss to the crime fiction world.

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    1. Linda - cheers for stopping by. Thanks for the recommendations, I don't have those ones on my shelves. I will look them up. I have THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER'S BOY and A FATAL INVERSION in my Vine stash.

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  6. Glad to hear you enjoyed your first taste of Vine, Col! I have this particular novel on the top of my dwindling stash of Vines, so with luck it won't be too long 'til I get to it.

    Like Linda above, I like the Vines, then the Rendell standalones, then the Wexfords, in that descending order. The Vines have been anywhere from good to excellent, with some of the best -- like The Chimney Sweeper's Boy -- being only marginally crime novels. The mid-period Rendell standalones are the best in this category; some of the early and some of the late ones are a bit rickety.

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    1. John thanks for your input squire. I have it in my head to avoid the Wexford books, just because I don't want to embark on another series set when I have so many to get to already. Maybe I'll go with A Judgement in Stone then The Chimney Sweeper's Boy.

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  7. Everything I have read by Rendell has been good, but some of the standalone books are too full of tension for me. I don't enjoy them, even though I can appreciate how well they are written. I don't know if I have read any of the Barbara Vine books. This one sounds especially interesting because of the Underground. Very nice review, Col.

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    1. I did like the Underground facts which were littered throughout the book. Like John says about some of her work, this one barely passes as a crime novel in my opinion, and yet it won the Gold Dagger. I think you might enjoy it. Glen would probably enjoy the factual elements!

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    2. I agree, I think Glen would be interested in this. If I can find a copy, I will have him check it out to.

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    3. I hope to see it pop up in his Goodreads feed soon!

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